It would be difficult to imagine a bigger sea change in thinking and practice about the private sector’s role in international economic development than what we’ve witnessed these past 12 months: from the financing-for-development conference in April that talked about moving from billions to trillions of dollars by crowding in private-sector financial resources, to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted in September, to the United Nations-led climate change negotiations (COP21) in Paris that concluded in December, and finally to conversations about the technology-driven 4th Industrial Revolution ‎at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January.

Have you noticed that when you are driving with a passenger in your car, you stop talking whenever you have to perform a complicated maneuver (such as passing a truck on a narrow road or merging into traffic from an on-ramp)? It’s because that task requires extra attention, and we have a limited budget for attention (cognitive bandwidth). Because the two activities requiring attention (the maneuver and talking) interfere with one another, it is a challenge to successfully complete the two simultaneously.